Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos introduces the Kindle Fire tablet in October 2011. Smartphone users are 50% more likely than the average to own tablets. Photograph: Emmanuel Dunand/AFP/Getty Images

The UK saw the biggest jump in smartphone usage during the first 10 months of 2011 out of any of the "big five" developed countries, rising from 30% to 45% by October, according to new statistics from market researchers Ipsos Mori.

It also found that smartphone users are roughly 50% more likely than the average person to own a tablet across the US, UK, France, Germany and Japan.

The study, commissioned by Google, found that by last October, smartphone usage was 38% in the US and France, 23% in Germany and 17% in Japan. Those had risen by 7, 11, 5 and 11 percentage points respectively.

The study (PDF) found that by October tablet usage among consumers in the US had reached 11%, as netbook usage slipped from 10% to 8%. In the UK, tablet usage grew from 4% to 6%, against 8% for netbooks.

E-readers grew in use in the US from 9% in January to 10% in October, and in the UK from 3% to 5%. In France, Germany and Japan they were at 1% or 2% and remained there.

Smartphone owners keep on using their laptops or desktop machines daily, with no statistically significant difference in usage. Reflecting general use, more people have laptops than desktops.

The notable difference is in takeup of tablets. In the US it is 11% in the general population, but 17% among smartphone owners. In the UK the figures were 6% and 10%; in France 5% and 8%; in Germany 6% and 8%; and in Japan 6% and 11%.

Smartphone users tended to make daily use of their devices for internet access, which was highest in Japan (88%), and then the US (69%), followed by the UK (54%), Germany (49%) and France (36%). The usage is close, in percentage terms, to that of PCs. The survey did not ask about regularity of usage of tablets.

The survey was carried out by calling a representative sample of 2,000 users in each country via telephone calls to fixed and mobile numbers.